Too Much for One
And you win a game with not one, not two, three, four, five, but six characters with each of their own stories to play as! In this game, you play as six different characters as strange circumstances befuddle them when Dr. Eggman unleashes his latest plan of awakening and exploiting an ancient creature. Throughout the different stories, each character embarks on their own quest to accomplish their tasks. To do this each character must utilize their unique abilities to traverse each stage to advance their stories. With that said, I do enjoy this game. Each of the different style of gameplay are fun, although some take more getting used to than others. Particularly, some may have issues with Big's fishing segments, but it's not that bad once you have a solid enough idea of what to do. Once a fish bites, press down on the gray control stick, and it becomes a hectic game of moving left and right (with clockwise and counterclockwise motions). The boy that knows all can help. Although, an aspect of this (and Sonic Adventure 2) that I don't quite like is the Chao Gardens. In particular, raising the Chao in order to participate in races where the prizes (concerning 100%) are Emblems. Collecting all of the Emblems earns the player the 100% bonus in this game and the sequel. I've heard of exploitable glitches (at least for the sequel) where it streamlines the process to no time, but those who do that either don't care for the "natural" process or are just curious for the many different paths of growth for the Chao. However, if one were to do it "normally", the player would be required to go back and forth (best with Sonic, Knuckles and Amy; all characters alright in the sequel) for hours straight in order to acquire the animals for your Chao. And if you’re not brute forcing it, it will take weeks in order to have your Chao ready to earn all of those Emblems. The sequel is worse were in that you have do this for two different kinds of Chao. Needless to say, this process of raising Chao is perhaps the most monotonous and repetitive mechanic for Sonic game, in my opinion. It takes way too long than it needs to be and can easily render the gameplay boring if your shoving through the whole thing normally. The biggest (and perhaps only overall) redeeming factor of raising Chao is that with how much time and care is given to the Chao, it actually feels like a genuine friendship. But even then, it's just too long, with even switching to different characters not helping much.
Reviewed by: Ryan P from Edwardsburg, MI on 12/21/2018
5 5
